A Cat Watched
by WitheringWeasel
Summary: Please, just don't become a crazy cat lady, Soi Fon! Even in exile, Yoruichi knows she needs to reach out to the person she left behind.


"Here, kitty, kitty." A woman knelt on the sidewalk in front of a house, a piece of dried fish held out to a wandering black cat. Never one to refuse a gift, the cat sauntered over and purred in a typical cat-like fashion. It was a little more surprised than the average cat, however, when the woman, under the guise of a back scratch, grabbed it and held it to her chest.

An ordinary cat might not have minded, but this particular cat was a very non-feline creature- Yoruichi, pretending to be an innocent inhabitant of the human world.

Still, curiosity got the better of her, and Yoruichi allowed the woman to pick her up and carry her inside. As they stepped inside, a swarm descended. They were swallowed by an onslaught of cats, bombarding them from every side meowing a cacophonous "FEED US!".

The woman shushed them away and walked further inside to her bedroom - the only cat free room of the house.

"You'll never leave mama, will you, kitty? Not like that mean Hisashi. He left me. He left me alone and now all I have are my cats. My precious, darling cats."

Yoruichi was, indeed, unable to run, frozen by a sudden realization. Mountains shook, oceans dried, deserts flooded, and Yoruichi had an epiphany. The woman gasped as her newest addition to the home disappeared in a flash.

She circled on a rooftop, thinking about what she'd just seen. Insanity. Insanity caused by abandonment. Leaving someone without warning could have really harsh consequences. Unintended consequences, of course, but still very real. Her actions had consequence. She had known this, of course, since the day they ran from Soul Society, but it was her intention to live without regret. The knowledge could only hit her every once in a while, but when it did, it was like a desperate avalanche, pulling her back into her human form even as she paced on the roof.

* * *

><p>"Kisuke. I have to go back."<p>

"You're kidding right?" Kisuke studied her face, and saw that she was, in fact, not kidding. "Look, I know it hasn't been quite what you were expecting, but you knew what we were getting into."

"What _you_ were getting into," she scoffed, ignoring her forcefully voluntary role in their evacuation. "_I_ shouldn't have left."

"I think you mean, you shouldn't have left _her_." Kisuke was straying into unfamiliar territory. He preferred to mince words into teeny, tiny, unrecognizable statements when it came to Yoruichi's 'her'. "We both know she's the only reason you have to go back, or ever had to stay there."

Yoruichi crumpled. From Kisuke's position, it was only a slight cringe. Amusement was the only thing that came out of her dramatically. Fear, regret, guilt, sadness, anything that didn't result in a laugh was usually summed up by a stoic, far off stare. He had never seen her cringe before. A stammer worked its way into his speech to keep the peace. "And we both know that she… uh… probably wouldn't be super receptive to a sudden return…"

_That's the point. I need to go back before my absence does any more damage._

He could see she was thinking up cupboards full of reasons to go back, and "Yoruichi. You're here. She's there. There's nothing you can do to change that now."

"Yes, there is. I can bring her here." She was hushed, viciously focused on what she wanted.

Kisuke stayed quiet for a moment. This wasn't the first time Yoruichi had suggested going back for a kidnapping, but this was the first time she'd been so panicked about it. He remained the voice of reason, though it was an odd outfit for him.

"Consequences. Neither of us have been the best at judging those in the past." His reminder fell to a harshly defiant frown. "If you go back now, if you show up at her door, you won't just be confronting her, you'll ignite a hunt. They'll hunt us down. You won't have a happy ending unless we can also oust Aizen."

"She's…" Yoruichi couldn't finish a thought, so she ran. Kisuke didn't see her again for another half a century.

It was Yoruichi's mistake. They were irrevocably separated from each other, by politics and guilt and a bunch of hollowed Soul Reapers and her own goddamn mistake. And it was going to take more than her just wanting to be able to go back. It was going to take some movement in that grander plan to reunite them.

She could feel the pull, still. Through her gigai and through the barriers that separated their worlds. It felt strong enough to rip open the universe and take her back to Soi Fon, and it was all she wanted. To be swallowed back into that void, where pressure was not gravitational, but held her down all the same.

It became a question of what force crushed her the most- the physics of Urahara's gigai, the unflinching severity of her ritualistic military duties, or the absolute nothingness that expanded from her insides at the lack of Soi Fon.

* * *

><p>On the other side, the recently appointed Captain of the Second Division noticed a rustle in the bushes. When a black tail flicked out, the woman jumped in a reflexive terror. Time froze as she watched the feline figure emerge. This was the first cat she'd seen in fifty years. She hadn't noticed the absence before, but now that the reminder was staring her in the face every void that she'd managed to tape up with paperwork and training was emptied. She had been longing for and dreading this, and she didn't know what to say or do or think.<p>

Some small relief came when the cat showed its face, mottled with white and grey specks. Not the same cat that had repeatedly transformed into a naked Yoruichi, seemingly only to tease Soi Fon about blushing and having boundaries.

The stand-off ended when the cat, ignoring Soi Fon's paralysis, rubbed against her legs a few times, lost interest with her lack of scratching, and ran off. Soifon returned to her desk to stare at the ever growing stack of paper. After an hour of studying the tower and not making a move to touch it, she stood and exited the room. When she returned a half hour later she paused outside and placed the items she'd acquired just outside her door. It was five minutes of meticulously adjusting the small bowl and saucer until she uncapped the bottle and filled the bowl with cream, and placed a few pieces of fish on the plate next to it. It was another minute of steadying herself before she went inside, shaken and comforted at the same time

It wasn't much, but it felt like the best apology she could offer, circumstances considered.

(Fifty years later, even while Soi Fon was trying to kill her, Yoruichi's first sigh of relief was for the fact that Soi Fon had not adopted a single cat.)


End file.
